Daddy Daycare

It's almost embarrassing that the first time Trevor got to fly solo with Wren-Lee happened when she was 11 weeks old. You'd think that, being her father, this would've occurred much earlier but it just didn't. So, it was about time he had quality time with his daughter.

The other yummy mummies and I decided to have breakfast together. It just so happened that in planning our gathering, we all decided that our husbands should look after their girls. Duane also hadn't looked after Sienna for an extended period of time and Clint was very eager to get Chloe to himself for a few hours even though she's only 2 weeks old.

Carlyn, Natalie and I advised Tanya on her first time expressing milk and I got my bottle ready for Trevor. My beloved baby daddy wasn't very impressed that I was quizzing him on details and he got me out of the house as fast as he could.

Carlyn, Nats, Tanya M, Tanya B and I had a good laugh when we all arrived at the cafe because it was so odd for us to be together without babies. It was a necessary change for all of us though. We needed a break and had a lovely time chatting over coffee, breakfast and cake.

Obviously, all our phones were on the table and we joked about whether or not the guys would cope. We were quite proud that we didn't get any distress calls and Clint and Trevor had no problems with bottle feeding. The girls were quite fine except for one unusual thing: They didn't sleep well. Sienna and Wren-Lee didn't sleep as long as they usually do and Chloe didn't want to sleep at all. Fortunately, it wasn't a problem for anyone.

Clearly, we didn't give the boys the credit they deserve. We underestimated just how capable they are and how well they know their kids.

Trevor has called me out on my lack of trust in his ability to look after Wren-Lee and I've admitted to not trusting him enough. He's happy to spend quality time with her and it's good that he also gets to experience taking care of her without me playing "backseat parent". But now that I know he's quite fine on his own, I think I shall make myself scarce more often.

Daddy Daycare is on duty :-)

Little big person

For someone so small, Wren-Lee has quite a life. The last few weeks have been a good example of just how big this little dinky toy's world is becoming.

She's been to Decorex, the Waterfront, quite a few restaurants, Canal Walk, did a stroll around the block on a sunny day, tagged along to my Pilates class and has been keeping up her social engagements at friends' houses. My personal favourite outing was dinner at Reuben's at the One&Only. Oh yes people, this little miss has been to Cape Town's very own 6 star hotel and the resident eatery owned by SA's favourite celebrity chef.

While her mommy and daddy had lovely steak, lamb shank, red wine and yummy desserts, she got a bottle. Ever the socialite, she had her meal at the table and stayed awake for quite a while enjoying the sights and sounds of the restaurant. Unfortunately, she fell asleep just before Reuben came to join our table but he did get a good look at her.

Continuing with her celebrity run-ins, a few days later we bumped into my friend, Aidan Bennetts (model, TV presenter, design genius and entrepreneur), while we out for lunch with another celeb friend; sports journalist and football guru Julia Stuart. I'm quietly trying to arrange a future romance for Wren with either one of Aidan's nephews. If their uncle is anything to go by, they'll be good lads when they're older. Uncle Aidan, however, still has to be persuaded into this arrangement *laugh*

Anyhoo, Aidan did meet her at Decorex but she was sleeping so he was happy to catch her awake. Julia was so hoping she'd be awake but she slept straight through our lunch date.

We also went to meet little Chloe Morris but both girls were asleep although they have now officially been introduced. Hopefully next weekend, Wren and Sienna will get some time together and we'll see if their communication has progressed. The last time they were together, they actually managed a short conversation in babbling, cooing and brief shouts. It was hilarious and Natalie and I had such a good laugh at their little talk in their nonsensical language.

Finally, kiddo got her 10 week shots. It went pretty well and we got her new measurements. She's 57cm tall and weighs 4kgs. At last!! We hit 4kgs!!! I was so excited I figured she'd fit into her 1-3 month clothing now. Big mistake; it's all still way to big for her. We continue in newborn for a bit longer, some of which is still big enough for her to be in for another month maybe.

So, although my little person is still quite little, she's growing in every way. She's getting taller, a little heavier and has discovered her hands. She laughs at her daddy, moans at her mommy, relaxes in her bath and really enjoys communicating. I can see in her eyes that pretty soon my little baby is going to be my little big person and I can't wait.

Happy Snappy

A little while back we did a photo shoot with Wren-Lee. Despite a bit of a difficult start with kiddo adjusting to the flash and having a camera all up in her grill, she behaved beautifully. In fact, she got so relaxed that she fell asleep for 20 minutes allowing for some beautiful photographs. Enjoy some pics :-)

Learning to let go

At some point I had to accept that Wren-Lee can't be with me all the time. I was simply waiting for the right time and opportunity to be ok with having someone look after her while I was off somewhere else. That opportunity was thrust upon me in the form of Tony Stark *giggle*

I can't say no to Tony Stark.

Childish as it may be, I love me some Iron Man. I love me some Iron Man when he's hanging out with hottie Thor and the yummylicious Captain America. I also like Scarlett Johansson's bum that black leather outfit. Ok, enough ogling, I'll get to the point: There was no way I was going to miss watching The Avengers. At the cinema. With popcorn. And, oh yes, Trevor had to be there too.

So, a week beforehand, I pumped out two extra feeds and mentally prepared myself to leave Wren-Lee with my folks for few hours. It's not that I don't trust my folks. It's that I know they wouldn't let her come home too easily. Anyway, we dropped her off and were quickly told to get on and go watch the movie.

The movie was awesome but it was weird being without the little monkey. I managed to fight the urge to check up on her seeing as my phone's battery was nearly dead. By the time we got back to pick up our little angel, my mom was busy feeding her and my dad was very eager to show us the photographs he'd taken of her on his iPad as well as video of her laughing and talking to the mobile in her camper cot. Speaking of the iPad, Wren has apparently taken to it. My brother took pictures of her enjoying the lullaby apps with the iPad next to her. Yup, never a dull moment with my family.

With the first jab of separation now firmly administered, I've also arranged with my mom-in-law to look after Wren-Lee while I'm at Pilates twice a week.

Back to my parents, they're already pestering me to babysit again. Apparently our trip to the movies was nowhere near long enough. Maybe it's time to bargain with them: They send us for dinner at Reuben's and they can get the baby...sounds like a plan to me :-)

Shout, shout, let it all out...

The monkey has found her voice and it gets used...often.

First, she had a few fussy days. It was almost like she decided that she hadn't cried enough yet in her short time in the world and wanted to catch up. Fortunately, it wasn't anything bad. She just cried for the sake of crying and we did manage to calm her down and get her sleeping eventually.

Then it was her 6 week check-ups and shot. The paediatrician is happy with her growth and development and Wren-Lee's a healthy kiddo. She weighs 3.4kgs, is 53cms tall and her head is 38cm in circumference. She's got a big head! Seriously! The doctor says that while her head is a bit bigger than it should be in relation to her body, it's nothing to worry about. Just means she's a bit smarter :-)
We did have a good chuckle about her measurements. The doctor says she has officially reached the size of the average newborn ha ha ha!

Nobody was looking forward to her immunisation. We were extremely nervous and Trevor came along because we knew it was going to be fairly traumatic for everyone. As if we didn't need any more scaring off, there was baby getting 14 week shots while we waited and she screamed all through it. The 6 week and 14 week immunisations are equally bad according to other moms and even the doctors and nurses. So there we are with our dinky toy baby wondering how bad this is going to be for her.

I stood next to her and focused on her face, letting her hold my finger while the injections were done. I refused to watch the needles go into her legs because I don't even watch the needles go in when I get shots or have blood drawn. Trevor made the mistake of standing behind me and watched all three injections. Of course she cried bitterly especially when the Hepatitis vaccine was given because it burns. But Trev picked her up immediately after and she calmed right down. Our little girl is quite the tough cookie.

We were warned that she'd be a bit sleepy or cranky for the next two days. She totally surprised us by being rather happy. It was then that she decided to start "speaking". She's made little noises before but now she strings the sounds together and has begun communicating in baby babble. If we're quiet long enough, she includes little shouts and exclamations amidst the cooing noises. Wren's also got her own version of laughing. It's a big open mouth smile that she holds for a few seconds. We can't say for certain that she's responding to specific stimuli but she looks so cute when she smiles so who cares.

Oh baby, baby

It's been five glorious weeks since Wren-Lee came into our lives. Things have changed but it's definitely been for the better. We wouldn't trade anything for the indescribable joy she's brought into our lives.

I'm happy to report that she's a wonderful baby. She sleeps 3-4 hours at a stretch and goes up to 6 hours at night if she's had a good day and a good feed. She wakes up quietly and is rather economical with her crying, using it only if she absolutely has to. Believe me, she's got quite a voice! I've learnt to distinguish between her crying for hunger and the infamous "I'm tired now and moaning about it" cry. She feeds like a little monster but is healthy and growing well. Of course, every baby has an off day and Wren-Lee's prone to those too, mostly because she's overtired. We've had incidents of having to drive her around just to get her to doze off, days where she just doesn't feel like sleeping and recently there was an evening where she was so overtired she ended up sleeping for 6 hours straight followed by a feed and then another 5 hour sleep. Our favourite story so far is the night where she was fighting her fatigue at 2am. Trevor and I decided to pop her in the car so we got up to get dressed. In the five minutes we spent turning on lights and the TV and getting clothes on, she fell asleep lying on our bed. Never a dull moment with this one.

She's still quite small and some of her newborn clothing doesn't fit her properly yet. In fact, she has two pairs of premature baby pants which still don't quite fit and we've had people asking us how many days old she is when she's already more than a month old. Wren-Lee loves to bath but doesn't like being taken out of the water. There's usually a commotion until she gets her clothing on. Changing her nappy is a happy event and she's remarkably ok with cold wet wipes. While her daddy hasn't quite mastered the art of getting her to go to sleep, she does enjoy being with him and he can calm her down when I can't sometimes. He was also smart enough to pick up that she sometimes can't fall asleep in total silence after her middle-of-the-night feed and having the TV on helps that process.

Wren-Lee is great with noise, loves being in the car and is quite social. People dote on her because of her size and the fact that she looks like a baby vervet monkey...ok, I think she's a cute baby vervet monkey. On the rare occasion she's awake in social settings, she charms everyone. She even got her paediatrician to admit that she's extremely cute. Speaking of the paediatrician, we had to see him at 3 weeks when she developed acid reflux. We had 3 very difficult days of screaming and crying and I just knew it was reflux. I had hoped to keep her free of medication for quite some time but there's no point in holding on to that notion when your child is in pain. Thankfully, her medication worked almost immediately and her intake was drastically reduced after a week. She's not keen on the taste of her medication but I've tasted it and it's awful. Yuck!

As for us, we think we're getting the hang of this parenting thing. It's been an adjustment learning to pack an extra bag everywhere we go, getting into bed by 9pm and being mindful of her feeding schedule and bath time when we plan our day. Even cooking dinner has to be worked around feeding and bathing. It's literally a "take it one day at a time" situation for us. Trevor and I have good days where we work well together and bad days where we're a little snappy with each other. We talk about it and don't let it get in the way of us enjoying our daughter.

Despite the broken sleep, the physical tiredness from breastfeeding, constantly checking the clock to make sure she's in her routine, running around like crazy trying to finish dinner before Wren's bath, sitting up at all hours with a baby who's more interested at staring at me than closing her eyes and sleeping, there are moments when she makes all that drama worth while. It's when she stares at me, her eyes suddenly light up and then she gives me the biggest smile, I can't help but admit that she's the best thing that ever happened to us.

The Drama: Part 2

...And so Trevor was in the ER again.

The diagnosis was bronchitis. He'd stopped taking his chest infection meds to heal his stomach from the virus and the infection escalated to bronchitis. The doctor told him we weren't allowed home until Wednesday. Effectively, Trevor would be missing 5 days of the first week of Wren-Lee's life. We were devastated.

Everyone was pretty surprised that I hadn't collapsed into a sobbing heap yet. Truth be told, my mind was in business mode. I had to be strong to take care of my baby and keep Trevor positive because he was obviously heartbroken. I just kept reminding myself that it was better for him to get healthy so he could enjoy his time with her when we got home.

Amidst all this, I was also frantically planning Wren-Lee's baptism which came about quite suddenly. My dad's schedule conflicted with the date we'd originally planned and so we shifted her baptism forward to the coming Sunday. She'd be 10 days old and it would be beautifully serendipitous that Wren-Lee would be baptised with Sienna. I was elated that we would be sharing such a special moment with Natalie and Duane.

Finally, Wednesday dawned and we went home. Trevor was cautious with Wren-Lee but was clearly happy to have his girls home. I ended up taking care of him as he was still very much in recovery but we were enjoying late night feeds and getting to know our daughter.

The baptism was lovely and our mothers took care of just about everything. Wren-Lee was an angel and slept all through the service and all of the tea gathering afterward. It was so good to see friends and family and feel somewhat normal again. Unfortunately, Trevor's body took a knock and he spent most of the afternoon and evening in bed and it ended up being a good thing.

The Monday morning I woke up with mastitis. I had all the flu like symptoms and felt like I'd been hit by a train. At last roles were reversed and Trevor had to look after me. While I was doing my best to fight through feeling awful, I still had to breastfeed Wren which was the best treatment for the infection. Thankfully, it cleared up in 24 hours. That Wednesday, we had a lovely breakfast to celebrate our anniversary and had an afternoon of laughter with our friends.

Now, with all the stress I'd been through you'd expect that I would get baby blues. I didn't. Well, not in the conventional sense. I did crack a few times once I was home and cried a few times but for different reasons. I cried when I was angry then again when I was beyond tired one afternoon and another time when Trevor looked like he was getting sick again. That was pretty much it. Trevor will tell you that I can be a bit abrupt and short tempered sometimes but at least the crying was very minimal and occurred with valid reasons.

After all this drama, we did get to spend a few happy days together before Trevor's leave ended. It was great to just be home alone and indulge in being a little family. While I certainly wouldn't wish what happened to us on anyone, it certainly did make for a great story for Wren-Lee to hear someday.